First Tracks

by Catherine O'Connell

  ‘That’s a bummer,’ Reininger piped in unsolicited. He’d obviously been listening. ‘How’d you get home?’

  Suddenly all conversation had stopped and five pairs of eyes were on me. ‘I got a ride from a friend.’

  ‘Who’s the friend?’ he teased.

  Before I could even attempt an elusive answer, Neverman was on me. He clearly had no interest in who I was with. His interest lay outside that.

  ‘You left your lights on?’ he probed. ‘How in hell could you walk away from that monster without turning off the lights? The light that thing throws off could illuminate an operating theatre.’

  ‘Nice military reference.’ Reininger to Neverman.

  ‘I don’t know. I guess I was in a hurry.’ Me.

  ‘In a hurry for a little poontang?’ Reininger. I would have smacked him on the head if he weren’t wearing a helmet.

  Neverman was not to be put off. He had little interest in why I was in a hurry last night. His interest lay in my overlooking such a detail as remembering to turn off my lights. Something that would have had me a little concerned too, had the payoff not been so divine. ‘No really, Westerlind. That’s so unlike you. Just like letting a sled go is unlike you. Just like being on the west side of Ruthie’s is unlike you.’

  His mention of the lost toboggan made me draw a deep breath. As far as I knew, he had no knowledge of that slip-up. It was pin-drop silent in the gondola as everyone’s focus on me intensified, either concerned for me or embarrassed for me. Meghan, Singh: concern. The others: embarrassment. Except for Neverman, whose nearly black eyes were riveted on me, awaiting comment. When I didn’t say anything, he added, ‘And not remembering why.’

  I’ve never been one to wear my feelings on my sleeve. In fact, if I weren’t ski patrol, I could have been a crack litigator. People can say shit to me and it rolls off me like frozen peas off the counter. But everything about the slide bugged me, still bugged me. Put me in the corner like a raccoon trapped in the garage. Duane might be in the picture now, but Warren was still dead.

  Normally, I wouldn’t have let him bait me, but the avalanche was still sensitive territory. Wanting to blunt Neverman’s attack, I shared the following with everyone in the gondola. ‘Yeah. Well guess what? My memory is coming back and according to my doctor I should be about to give you one hundo per cent of what happened in a few days. If I don’t get stressed out,’ I added for Reininger’s benefit.

  There was momentary silence and then Meghan said, ‘Wow, aren’t you afraid?’

  ‘Afraid of what?’ I might have felt anxious to get my memory back, but I sure didn’t feel afraid.

  ‘Afraid of remembering you’re secretly in love with Neverman?’

  The ensuing laughter broke the tension, and discussion for the rest of the way up dealt with the day’s responsibilities.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  That night I sat in front of the television, stuffing potato chips into my mouth and drinking Heineken. I’d tried reading the Metamorphoses, but my mind was too otherwise occupied to concentrate. So I’d turned to mindless TV to keep me awake past my normal bedtime of ten, thinking of Duane’s three o’clock text that afternoon. WITH DAVE AND NANCY. CAN’T LEAVE THEM. WILL CALL LATER. Even though I couldn’t begin to imagine how horrid it must have been to be sharing something so final as the death of a young woman with her parents, that sick, self-absorbed side of me was happy beyond belief he’d texted. And while I understood all too well the pain of loss, my meeting with the girl had been brief and I had no emotional investment in her. I reread the text at least a dozen times. WILL CALL LATER. Coddling the phone in my hand like a teenage girl waiting to be asked to the prom, I hoped he remembered there was no cell service at the A-frame. That he had to use the landline number. I flicked through the limited channels of the old-fashioned big box TV, grateful for its mind-numbing company.

  I was watching a Gilligan’s Island rerun on Nickelodeon when the phone rang. My heart nearly jumped from my chest.

  ‘Hey.’

  I heyed back at him, trying not to let him know I was over the moon at the sound of his voice.

  ‘Sorry for not calling earlier. I’ve had one hell of a day as I’m sure you can imagine.’ His voice held a world of hurt in it. It no longer held the promise of a caress. ‘I hope I didn’t wake you.’

  ‘Nope. I’m watching Gilligan’s Island. I want to improve my mind.’

  His laugh relieved a little of the pressure. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  ‘Wish I was. It was the only thing I could find and I wasn’t ready for bed.’ Because I was waiting up for this call. ‘How are your friends doing?’

  ‘It’s so bad, Greta.’ There it was again. My name. My beautiful name. ‘You can’t even begin to imagine. They found her at the bottom of Castle Creek Bridge. So the big question is how did she end up there? Was she running from something or someone or was it some kind of freak accident?’ I could hear him suck in air in preparation for his next words. ‘From what the coroner says, she died from a broken neck. She guesses it happened when she hit the ground. She said Kimmy’s death was immediate and from what I saw I would concur.’

  ‘Her poor parents,’ was the best I could muster. I pictured the young blond watching Duane drive away and then heading back out to the clubs for last call. Did some asshole get her into his car and she jumped out at the bridge? I couldn’t help but think of how Ted Bundy had removed the door handles on the passenger side of his Volkswagen so his victims couldn’t escape. The very personification of evil.

  ‘Didn’t anyone see anything?’

  ‘The cops are asking around, but so far nothing. A couple who live down near the creek found her when they went out on cross-country skis this morning.’

  I thought of how busy that two-lane bridge was during the day and how traffic trickled down to nothing late at night. I thought of how the young New Zealander had stepped off a similar bridge and fallen to his death. Could her death have been a similar accident? A growing nausea rose inside me. How did a young woman head up to her hotel room one night and end up face down in Castle Creek days later?

  The way Duane’s voice choked told me he was holding back tears. ‘I feel so guilty. I should have seen her to the door. It could have made all the difference.’

  ‘Don’t do that to yourself. No one walks anyone to the door in Aspen unless …’ I stopped short of ending the sentence: unless they want to get into their pants. ‘Things like that just don’t happen here. Well, not since Ted Bundy, anyway.’

  Having no further comfort to offer, I remained silent, waiting for him to direct what course the conversation would take. My connection to him felt so strong, it was like we were holding hands through the telephone line. And then he said the exact words I had been mentally trying to draw from his mouth. ‘Would it be OK if I came up to see you?’

  ‘Of course,’ I replied gently.

  I turned off the television and went back to Ovid, trying to concentrate on Icarus flying too close to the sun with the words dancing off the page. A half-hour later the dead silence outside was broken by the muffled sound of his car on the snow-covered road. I closed the book and waited for him in the open doorway.

  More snow was predicted overnight, but for the time being the night was crisp and so clear the stars were a mix of nonpareils in a dark chocolate sky. Duane’s SUV stopped in front of the walkway. He didn’t move from behind the wheel, sitting immobile looking out over the headlights’ beams into the woods, the illuminated Aspen trees white jail bars imprisoning the secrets within. From out of nowhere, two mule deer appeared in the headlights, slipping from the trees into the clearing and disappearing on the other side. He rested his head on the steering wheel for a poignant moment and then with what looked like a great deal of effort, he turned off the car.

  My feet armed against the cold by my shearling slippers, I walked without a jacket to the driver’s side of the car. His head turned towards me and his brown and green eyes held as p
athetic an appeal as I’d ever seen. It was I who finally opened the car door, who reached in to take his arm.

  As if in a trance, he let me lead him up the walk and into the house. The fire I had built in my Hamilton stove had burnt down to almost nothing, but the living room remained warmed by the glowing embers. I walked him over to the Barcalounger with the intent of making him as comfortable as possible. He pulled me into the chair with him, the two of us a snug fit. It was my turn to touch him, and I ran comforting fingers across his face and along his jawbone.

  He turned his eyes on me, the rim of the green one a shade darker than the foamy sea within, and a tear fell on to his cheek. I took his glasses off and wiped the tear back with a fingertip, and then as if the action of wiping the tear away had opened floodgates, he began to cry. ‘You should have seen her,’ he sobbed. ‘I’ve known her since she was a little girl.’ I held his head to my chest and stroked his sleek hair. We were crushed together, but neither of us cared. His sobs tapered off until they were the sorrow equivalent of a dry heave.

  ‘Pardon my outburst,’ he said, letting out a sigh. ‘I needed to do that. Thank you for being here.’ He didn’t appear embarrassed he had cried. Slowly regaining his composure, he snuggled his head into my armpit and after a while fell asleep.

  We stayed like that, he in a dead slumber, me nodding in and out of sleep until two in the morning when he woke up to use the bathroom. It was cold in the room by then, and even in the dark I could see the snow falling outside the high windows. When he came back from the john, we climbed the ladder into the loft together, pulling my down comforter over our heads to escape the chill.

  He reached out to me, and I stopped his hand, bidding him to lay still. This time it was my turn to make love to him.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  We left in separate cars the next morning after brushing off the copious piles of snow that had accumulated since his arrival the night before. Luckily the plow had been through, so the road was clear. I followed behind him, basking in the aftermath of yet more lovemaking in the morning – his needy, mine gleeful. We followed with eggs and toast and coffee. It was the typical morning of two lovers if you left out the death. Was I selfish to enjoy it?

  Our paths separated as we reached town. He drove on to check on his friends and the arrangements for transporting the girl’s body. Afterwards he would go to work at the hospital. Following my usual routine, I parked and waded through the knee-deep snow to the gondola.

  There were a lot of employees uploading, so there were six of us in the bucket again, thwarting my plans for a solitary ride filled with private musings. Neverman was his usual officious self, his salt and pepper curls shaking as he decided who would detonate charges on which aspects to ensure the safety of the day skiers. The snow report said eighteen inches overnight and avalanche risk was high. Certainly some of the steeper slopes still holding snow would need blasting. Elevator Shaft and Silver Rush, and the runs that fed into the slopes directly above the town would need blasting as well. He listed off a couple other places with challenging descents.

  ‘What about Traynor’s?’ I heard Singh suggest. Traynor’s is the extreme terrain on Aspen Mountain just above town, seldom open and difficult to monitor during usual conditions.

  ‘Not opening Traynor’s. Not enough people on patrol to deal with Traynor’s in snow like this. Nope. Biggest priority today is clearing off the megaton of snow hanging over Kleenex Corner.’

  Kleenex Corner is the point nine-tenths of skiers have to pass to get to the base of the mountain. A innocuous-looking catwalk run located directly beneath cliffs and a rocky outcropping, it is exactly the sort of place skiers would never suspect the possible danger of tons of snow ready to let loose on their unsuspecting heads. In fact, the primary concern of most skiers on Kleenex Corner is avoiding other skiers.

  As Singh and Neverman continued discussing where to bomb, my mind drifted back to the night before. I was even more in awe of the doctor than I had been before. His physical appearance. His kindness and his concern for his friends. His ability as a lover. In all my life I’d never experienced anything like the way Dr Duane Larsen made love. My heart started throbbing at the very thought of him. Having him inside me was like coming home for the first time. It was all I could do to suppress a moan seated among my coworkers on the gondola. That’s how good it had been.

  ‘Are you with us, Westerlind?’ Neverman’s voice brought me out of the bedroom and back to the gondola.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I must have drifted.’

  ‘Well you better not drift on that ridge over Kleenex,’ he cautioned. ‘I know we’re used to these pep talks every morning and it’s “yah, yah, yah, same old, same old”. But we’ve had a shitbox of snow in the last week and me, well, I’m not quite sure what to expect here. That’s why I want you and Singh to grab your gear and get on it right away.’

  His voice held a peculiar stress that was alien to me. ‘Why don’t you chill, Mike?’ I asked my sometime nemesis. ‘I don’t know when I’ve seen you so worked up.’

  ‘Yeah, try paying attention to these conditions. Maybe you’re still punch drunk from banging your head. Sorry,’ he said quickly, trying to eat his last words, but they hit square where they were intended. But even as he sucker punched me, the skies were clouding up again, the sun disappearing behind a thunderhead of blue-black. Snow began falling again. ‘Good for us, bad for us,’ he added, looking up.

  And then he rotated his head back at Kleenex Corner and picked up his radio. ‘Ski patrol requesting late open to east side Ajax until we finish avi control.’ Singh and I gave each other the eye. Aspen Mountain was the crown jewel of the ski company and closing half the mountain for whatever reason could be financially painful. Then again, safety was foremost and dollars always took a back seat to safety. It appeared more than a few bucks would be lost this morning.

  We neared the top of the mountain, each of us immersed in his or her own thoughts. I’m sure most everyone else in the bucket was thinking of the tasks ahead of us this morning. Although I should have been thinking along the same lines, my thoughts couldn’t stay off Duane Larsen.

  Singh, Reininger and I were slogging through the accumulations over Kleenex Corner. Neverman wasn’t exaggerating when he said the ridge was a mess. I hadn’t been up there all season and just negotiating our way through the heavy powder told us the snow was unstable. Reininger stopped to dig a pit and called Singh and me over. ‘Look,’ he said, pointing to where the snow had crusted in the warm weather earlier in the season. ‘It’s a good goddam we closed this side of the mountain or we might have been looking at some human pancakes later today.’

  We were each carrying one bomb. We outsource the bombs as well as fuses and blasting caps and assemble them ourselves before we go out to do avi work. We didn’t do explosives on Ajax often, and although we were all experienced, there was always some danger involved, so I was feeling some tension. Believe me, as we lined up to do our work, my mind was totally focused, all thoughts of Duane Larsen relegated to the back-burner.

  The protocol was to light the fuse with a spitter and then toss the bomb into the selected area. We were lined up at equal distances on the ridge. Reininger was up highest and he went first. He sparked his fuse and tossed his bomb. It landed in the snow over Kleenex Corner and exploded ninety seconds later sending a first wave of snow to the trail below.

  Singh was next. He lit his bomb and tossed it into the deeper snow further down the ridge. The ensuing explosion caused a greater slide than the first, sending ever more snow down the mountain.

  It was my turn. I was situated at a lower, more critical point where the snow accumulation could be most threatening to skiers below. I lit the fuse and tossed the bomb at the desired area. But before it could even hit the ground, the explosive detonated with a boom. The ensuing shock waves sent me sailing backwards on to my butt and knocked the snow off all the surrounding trees. A minute later, a massive slide let loose beneath us
, sending the last of the snow down to the trail.

  I pulled myself upright. Singh was nowhere to be seen. I sidestepped up to where he’d been standing as quickly as I could. My heart nearly stopped when I saw him lying in the snow. Then it started back up as he moved, shook off the snow and got to his feet. Thank God he was OK.

  Reininger came skiing up. You could tell by his body language that he was angry. ‘What the fuck was that, Greta? Didn’t you check the fuse? You could have killed us.’

  ‘Jesus, Greta,’ Singh said, looking at me in a way unfamiliar to me. Then he didn’t say anything else.

  I was so flustered I didn’t know what to do. I could feel Neverman’s eyes boring a hole in the back of my head from the patrol shack at the top of the mountain. And rightfully so. I had endangered the lives of those around me. For the first time I started thinking maybe there really was something wrong with me.

  To say the rest of the day went poorly would be an understatement. The near miss with the explosives left me completely shaken. Like a lifeguard who has been rescued from a pool and relocated to the shallow end, I was relegated to speed control on the lower part of the mountain once we’d cleared it to open. I was reeling in self-doubt after nearly taking Singh’s life in an accident I didn’t quite understand myself. I most certainly would have been dead and the others injured, at best, if I’d held on to that explosive a second longer. No longer able to find the place for pleasurable memories of the night before, my brain was taxed with how I could have made such a mistake. As with the avalanche, there were no available answers.

  At the end of the day, just before sweep, Neverman pulled me aside in the hut. ‘Look, Greta,’ he said, putting me on notice by using my first name. ‘I know you’ve been through a lot of shit in the last couple weeks, but we gotta be honest here. Losing control of a toboggan is bad enough, but almost blowing yourself and your fellow patrollers up is too much. I’ve been giving you the benefit of the doubt, but today was just one too many. I want you to take some time off.’